Traveling for Thanksgiving this week? You may want to dust off your Pokémon GO app. Today Niantic Labs announced a week-long event that awards double the experience and Stardust, as a celebration and thank you to their players.
“It has been an incredible experience since we launched Pokémon GO a few short months ago in July,” writes the blog post. “We are humbled that hundreds of millions of you around the world have joined us on this journey. So we would like to say thank you – and what better way to say thank you than to celebrate our community.”
The event begins on midnight UTC on November 23, which is actually late afternoon and evening on November 22 for the US (7pm ET, 4pm PT). The event ends on the same time one week later on November 30 (29 in the US).
The update states that double XP and Stardust will be rewarded for in-game actions, which includes catching, battling, evolving, and hatching.
If you haven’t jumped into Pokémon GO in a while, they’ve recently added Daily Bonuses. Your first Pokémon catch of the day, each day, rewards a bonus chunk of Stardust. Likewise spinning your first PokéStop of the day nets about three to four times the usual pokéballs, potions, etc. In other words, you don’t have to catch or spin nearly as much to reap rewards. As an added bonus, doing either or both of those tasks for seven days in a row results in a huge bonus reward.
Pokémon is currently experiencing a massive resurgence in popularity. The Pokémon Company is celebrating the franchise’s 20th anniversary this year, and the seventh generation mainline games Pokémon Sun and Moon were just released last week with record units shipped. Pokémon GO’s incredible popularity has been a major force in reclaiming Pokémon’s spot in popular culture.
